


Chase Shadows In The Sky

by mrfreddyjones



Series: Thallen Fall Week 2015 [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, fairy tale AU, thallenfallweek2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 11:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5089061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrfreddyjones/pseuds/mrfreddyjones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his eighteenth birthday, Prince Barry requests from the King permission to leave the kingdom. He tells the man all call Your Majesty, but whom he calls a Father, of his dreams of far off places, distant lands, and new stories.<br/>He doesn’t tell the King of the Black Dove.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chase Shadows In The Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day two of Thallen Fall Week 2015: October 27, Fairy Tale AU.  
> Title from the song Black Dove by The Daylights.  
> Somewhat inspired by the Portuguese fairy tale of The Prince Who Wanted To See The World, and the German fairy tale of The Devil With The Three Golden Hairs, as well as an old tale I first read when I was a kid on Maktub: The Book Of Destiny And Other Stories by Malba Tahan, and The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

Barry Allen was a prince. Son to King West in all but blood, the boy had appeared in a wooden box by the river one day, and taken into the West family, to be raised with love and kindness, just as the king’s own firstborn daughter, Princess Iris, heir to the throne. His entire life, Prince Barry had been considered _distracted_ , a little slow, even, by the people of the great Kingdom of Zentrale. But for those who knew him, it was clear that the reason for the boy’s absence of mind was just that – his mind was somewhere else, for, for his entire life, Prince Barry had been burdened with a craving. A kind of homesickness for a place he’d never known.

 _Fernweh_.

On his eighteenth birthday, Prince Barry requests from the King permission to leave the kingdom. He tells the man all call Your Majesty, but whom he calls a Father, of his dreams of far off places, distant lands, and new stories. He doesn’t tell the King everything, doesn’t mention the burning in his heart every time he wakes up, the need to leave, to _run_ , to be _somewhere_ he doesn’t know where.

He doesn’t tell the King of the Black Dove.

The King grants him his wish, reminding Barry that the doors to the kingdom will always be open should he chose to return, and before he left, Prince Barry received gifs – an amulet from the King, said to restore to form any cursed being; a compass from Princess Iris, said to point to one’s destiny; and sitting on his window still the morning he was to leave, Prince Barry found a single black feather.

Days into his journey, and the Prince finds himself lost, having followed the compass to the tortuous woods, towards the unknown. He is exhausted, doesn’t know where he’s going, but the path seems familiar. The sky doesn’t feel new, nor does the ground beneath his feet, but they are. And then, at the top of a boulder, just as in his dreams, there is the Black Dove.

The compass pointed to it.

“Dove,” he says, approaching the bird tentatively. “Dove my dear, would you help me? There’s someplace I need to be, but I’m afraid I don’t know how to reach it”. The Dove looked into his eyes, into his soul, and ascended to the sky, guiding Prince Barry. The Dove led the way to a kingdom in ruins, the Kingdom of Stern.

Upon his arrival, the prince finds that the place is unnervingly familiar to him, if not from his memories, from his dreams. Sitting at the top of a tower, the Dove looked down on him, with love in its eyes.

Prince Barry was brought to the King, a lean man with eyes hard as stone, known as King Eobard by his subjects. The king called him a trespasser, and demanded to hear his story, but acted as if he refused to believe him still. King Eobard, without batting an eye, ordered Prince Barry to be thrown into the dungeon, and that any Dove found in his kingdom should be slain immediately.

That night, Barry was visited once again by his Black Dove, and in his dreams the bird told him of a prophecy. That he who was born with the mark of lightning would marry King Eobard’s firstborn, and banish the ruthless ruler to an eternal imprisonment worse than death itself. He told the prince that eighteen years ago a young boy was born with a mark like branches, like a spider-web that reaches for the chosen one, like lightning. Like the one Prince Barry had spreading across his back. The Dove told him that King Eobard was so infuriated that the boy had the audacity to be born, that he’d slain his parents and threw the boy in a box, and the box in a river, sure that he would drown, and that just to be sure, he then turned his first born into a dove.

A Black Dove.

The Dove finally told Prince Barry of a way to win back his freedom, to release the first born from its own prison, and to put an end to King Eobard’s reign of terror. And when the morning arrived, the prisoner demanded to see the King.

He told the king a prophecy of his own, tales of a war to come, and a fate worse than death to those who would lose. He told the king he’d been visited by an Angel that night, an Angel who told him tales of blood raining from the skies and fire burning in the water, and the ruins of the world. He said a single king would be standing, and that it would be he who owned one of the Devil’s hairs.

King Eobard agreed to free Prince Barry in exchange for a single hair from the Devil’s head. He sent the Prince on his quest with the promise that, if he were to return with the hair, then both he _and_ his dove would be released. And so Prince Barry set on a three day journey to the underworld.

On the first night of his journey, the prince came across a vagrant, Leonard Snart, who offered his assistance in exchange for the secret to not being alone, and on that night, as they crossed the Sands of Ire, the vagrant lost his temper, and punched Prince Barry, who, without addressing him, wrote in the sand: _Today Leornard Snart, vagrant, attacked me for no discernible reason._ On the second night, the two of them were joined by another man, Hartley Rathaway, who, after being banished by his parents, wished to make a deal with the Devil for a kingdom of his own. Finally, on the third night, they are assisted by Cisco Ramon, a Ferryman trapped on his Ferry, who took them across the river of sinners’ souls in exchange for a way out. On their way across the river, Prince Barry lost his balance, falling towards the troubled waters, only to be caught by Snart’s steady hands. The vagrant smiled at him, and neither of them said a word, but upon arriving at the other side, the Prince took the time to carve into a large stone: _Today, Leonard Snart, vagrant, saved me from certain death._ He explaind to Snart that the secret to not being alone was to write one’s hurt in the sand, where the wind of forgiveness can easily erase them, but to engrave others’ good deeds in stone, so that they’d always be remembered. And as they head into Hades, the strangers had become friends.

They’d come face to face with The Devil, and Prince Barry told him his tale. The Devil agreed to give the prince one of his hairs, in exchange for the soul of a cruel man, and with a glance at Hartley, Prince Barry offered him a merciless king in exchange for the ferryman’s freedom as well as the hair. The Devil agreed.

They made their way across the river, and Prince Barry told Cisco that, to be free, all he needed to do was place his oar at the hands of another man on the river’s bank, and not to worry: they were to send his way a man deserving of such fate. They made their way back to Stern, where King Eobard, a man of his word, pardoned both Prince Barry and his Dove of any and all crimes. Prince Barry offered him not only the Devil’s hair, but also enough power to be more than any King, more than a god – power reserved exclusively to he who return’s the Devil’s hair.

King Eobard left that night, and Prince Barry used the amulet to turn the Dove back into a beautiful young man, with blue eyes and golden hair and a smile as white as snow; and on the following morning, Barry and the King’s firstborn – Eddie, as he was called – got married. Eddie passed the throne to Hartley, for he too was drawn to a place that wasn’t there, and King Hartley made Snart a knight. Six days after Eobard's departure, they were joined by Cisco Ramon, who was then granted residency on the Kingdom, which was now to become a safe haven for those who had no place left to go.

And Barry, and his husband Eddie, followed the compass back to Zentrale, where they were welcomed with open arms, and the tale of Barry – the prince who brought peace between Stern and Zentrale – became a legend.


End file.
